The true battle of the gaming consoles began months before last Christmas. Beginning about October, and definitely by Black Friday – the Friday shopping day after Thanksgiving. Television, newspapers, and every advertising medium were filled with articles and advertisements for the new gaming consoles coming out just in time to put under the Christmas tree.
The gaming console picked to attract the most attention immediately was the PlayStation 3. It touted the Blu-ray player that was part of the standard equipment, and that Blu-ray player was supposed to be the feature that crushed all other game consoles. Unfortunately, the PlayStation 3—like its predecessor and the original Xbox and Xbox 360—was under produced. Supposedly the problem was in the blue diode chip that enabled the Blu-ray player to work. As a result, there were simply not enough PlayStation 3 units produced when it first came out. In my hometown, we couldn't get enough PlayStation 3s to fill every Christmas stocking.
The Xbox 360 came out the Christmas before. It, too, was under produced and ended up inspiring a whole new generation of campers that took up the sport outside Wal-Mart, Costco, and other electronic outlet stores around the United States. The price tag of the PlayStation 3 was exorbitant, as was that of the 360 when it first broke.
But the same time Nintendo released its new game system called simply Wii. At $250.00 per unit, buying a Wii seemed like a no-brainer, except that people were getting wooed in by the graphics offered by the PlayStation 3. But the lack of PlayStation 3 units caused a run on the Wii at Christmas that has taken months to level off.
I had been looking for a Wii since before Christmas and finally scored one at a Best Buy in May. My eighteen-year-old and I had been diligently calling the local retail stores trying to nail one down. We even called in favors from some of his friends who worked at those places to find out about incoming shipments. The problem was, those incoming units generally disappeared as soon as they hit the floor. No one would hold one back. And you couldn’t buy one over the Internet. Not even from Amazon.
We got up bright and early on a Sunday morning and hauled butt down to the local Best Buy to grab a unit seconds after it was put out. My wife thought we were crazy. My son and I thought we were on a mission to rescue the Holy Grail. My nine-year-old came with us. It was his first time for such foolishness and he had a blast. After we got the unit, we hit the game shelves. Everybody got something.
Of course, Dad got the bill.
At home, we hooked the unit up to the 42-inch television in the living room and proceeded to play. The games were unpacked and passed around. Everybody got to play for a little while. Even when we weren’t playing our games, we all sat around watching everyone else play their game. Of course, we made comments on the player’s form - unfriendly comments that beggared gross retribution when our own time came to play.
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